pretty random

You're soo out of the loop now that you're in KW. This is Old news now. Ever since Moncton got an international airport, they think they're Toronto.

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leapfish.livejournal.com

God bless the company who thought, "Paris...Moncton...now THERE'S an underserved market!"

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I didn't think Moncton was that big of a city... and they have an international airport? Damn...

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Moncton isn't that big. They are a little bit more than 1 fifth of the population of HRM, but they are a hub.

Since they are so central, it makes good sense for businesses and other services (e.g. International Airport) to set up there because it's a reasonable distance for most of the other communities around to travel.

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Yeah, the geography of the city definitely makes it a good location... I can see that.

And in Maine, Bangor (which only has around 40,000 people) also has an international airport which, I'm sure, was built for similar reasons. So yeah, that all makes sense.

I just remember going through Moncton as a child and thinking that, while it was bigger than the surrounding communities, it still wasn't that big a town...

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ALso remember that "international" just means "crosses at least one border." So Bangor's airport likely has a single flight to New Brunswick. :)

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I don't have time to do research this morning, but I'd bet that Bangor goes to a lot of spots in southern and eastern Canada... as I'm sure Moncton might hit a few spots in the Northeast US as well.

Halifax also has an Int'l Airport, right? But they're a bigger city so they probably hit even more locations...

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Yeah, Halifax flies to UK and US, but I think that's it. Several locations.

As for Bangor, www.flybangor.com tells me: "On June 9, 2005, Continental will offer nonstop flights to Newark Liberty International Airport, NJ with onward connections to approximately 148 destinations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Carribean."

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OMG, the website spoke to you? That's simply amazing ;-)

Honestly, though? It seems pretty silly that that's all there is to it.

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Someday, we're going to have Interplanetary Airports. And then we'll make fun of the ones that only fly to the Moon.

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Do you really think we'd see something like that in our lifetimes? Interplanetary airports??

(you're kidding with me, right?)

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Dunno. Certainly not the way the world is getting so self-centred lately. But consider this: there were no lasers 45 years ago, and now they're used in corner-store-hair-removal and eye surgery. Nobody had been outside of orbit 36 years ago. Sadly, nobody's been on the Moon in 30 years.

I'm a big fan of Arthur C Clarke, and he is pretty spooky in his predictions. For example, he invented the satellite, and predicted all sorts of other shit in his books, much of which has come true. So you never know...

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You've made me quite curious... does he have a book that compiles such predictions or are they scattered about in different publications?

And how old are they (the predictions)?

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THey're in his novels. Don't get me wrong, he has many that proved untrue, but he made them 40 years earlier so I don't get too upset about that. Some links:

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/AuthorTotalAlphaList.asp?AuNum=52

http://www.infinite-energy.com/iemagazine/issue22/clark.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C_Clarke

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I knew that name sounded familiar. He wrote 2001... huh, interesting.

I've saved the links to read later this weekend... for now, though, I've got to get back to understanding communism :-P

Thanks :-)

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Bangor, Maine is also an International airport because that's where they do emergency landings for transatlantic flights.

So when they decided to put Cat Stevens off the plane, or someone's setting fire to their shoe, they end up in Bangor.

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LOL, great analysis... but in the case of a true "emergency" (yeah, that crazy Cat Stevens, we all know what he had up his sleeve! He was going to play Wild World on his acoustic guitar!! Code RED!), wouldn't it make more sense to land at Halifax or St. John's, Newfoundland. Those are definitely farther east and still within range of the flight paths on transatlantic flights.

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In fact, that's what they do more often now. Canada is far more popular as a place for things to crash or blow up than it used to be, at least to the White House. :)

Just last week a Virgin Atlantic flight was pulled over by our fighters rather than allowed into the US.

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...and by our fighters, I mean Canadian ones.

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Aww, Cam... you Canadians guys is so damn nice to screen the terrorists for us stupid Americans ;-)

p/s - I can't watch the news anymore because GW keeps doing/suggesting stupid things... one more of them and I'm going to start cutting liberal messages into my forearm and posting them on the net :-P

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If the plane is going to or from the US, an emergency landing on the east coast would have to be under US jurisdiction.

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Actually, that's not always the case. Extradition treaties (among other things) make this not always a requirement. Additionally, it depends on the key question: "Might this plane blow up and kill people?" If yes, then a common strategy is "Get it the hell away from people." Goose Bay, Halifax, and Moncton airports are all much further from their population centres than most northeast USA airports are.

But I'm just making this shit up, I don't know the actual laws involved. All I can point to is the Virgin flight last week.

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I think it they expect to take someone off the plane, it lands in Bangor. If it's going to blow up, they send it to Canada.

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I think it they expect to take someone off the plane, it lands in Bangor. If it's going to blow up, they send it to Canada.

<font="sarcasm"> Because the CBC gets tired of running moose sightings as their lead story...</font>

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In the case of the Virgin flight, Canada was actually the one which intercepted it and diverted it because the transponder on the flight was malfunction and blaring out "HIJACKED!" Usually if it is an issue the US government has with a passenger, they divert to Bangor, Maine - it's only reasonable anyway. For medical or mechanical emergencies they will tend to stop in Canada though, since obviously it comes first.

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Right. Of course.

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Actually, if there's a danger to the US, they make them land in Canada. They're nice that way.

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That hasn't been my experience, actually. My BF has some ties to a TV news department in Bangor so he watches their broadcasts religiously and usually gets the "inside story" by phone when something like this happens.

Of course, we only care so much about emergency landings. He really stays on top of the moose sighting stories.

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Well sure, who wouldn't?!

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The station where he used to produce the news program back in the mid-80s posts their transcripts on the Internet. We always laugh when there's a moose story. And there's this one guy who's a total closet case that always gets the moose and cow reports.

During the winter he gets to do the report where they go up to the stake on top of the mountain to see how much snow has fallen.

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I think they land in Halifax if there is danger, and then Bangor to to remove all of the people with "ethnic" names.

C'mon, Bangor is part of Canada anyway, isn't it? Don't you remember the early nineties? It was taken over by a bunch of middle-aged Canadian housewives looking for bargains, if I recall correctly.

In fact, I think that Dick Stacey's motel in Brewer become a historic monument for the occasion.

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Most recently, Bangor has become part of Somalia - only with US welfare benefits...

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Just to clarify, I don't think there are any transborder flights to Bangor, Maine. It is the first airport in the US when crossing the Atlantic, so when the US is concerned about a passenger, the flight is usually diverted to Bangor. That and any charter flights to international locations would be enough to make it an international airport as far as I understand it.

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According to their website, international flights started yesterday. :)

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Scheduled or charter? Where does it say that on the site? The news section (http://www.flybangor.com/news.asp) just mentions a mock drill and increased flights to minneapolis.

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Whoops, I misread it. You're right, there appear to be none at the moment. Must be charters (if anything currently).

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but thanks for the clarification :-)

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Don't worry, Halifax doesn't have anything to worry about from Moncton. Moncton has hardly any domestic service, no transborder service and no international service. The only reason it's international is because there are some international charter flights that fly there. Halifax, on the other hand, is an Atlantic Canada hub for Air Canada and Canjet. Canjet and Air Canada Jazz are headquartered in the city. It features excellent connections to other Atlantic Canada destinations, good connections to western and central Canada, several transborder flights and one international flight to London with Air Canada considering expanding that to an additional flight to Frankfurt. To be honest, as someone who once hailed from Ottawa, I'm somewhat jealous of the service that a city a third its size has.

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Really? I just talked someone from Moncton recently, and I could have swore that they were lauching the next space shuttle from there.

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It's true, we are out of the loop. Did you know there's a bridge to PEI now?!?

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nihilicious.livejournal.com

Only until the Confederation Chunnel is finished.

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(I hate football, but I love Canadian versions of things. What's a guy to do?)

Well, my ex used to go to the grocery store and rearrange packages so that they alternated with the English and French sides facing front... would that help?

(He's also a bigger airline freak than you are. Due to the reasons for which he's my ex, I won't rush to introduce you)

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